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Unknown Lamer
on Tuesday March 04, 2014 @03:58AM
from the peta-decides-eating-people-is-fine dept.

sciencehabit writes "Don't expect an artificial chicken in every pot anytime soon. Since 2008, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has offered $1 million to anyone able to create a commercially viable artificial meat from growing chicken cells. But although scientists are making progress toward artificial hamburgers, even a 2-year extension from the original deadline of 2012 wasn't enough to lure applicants for PETA's prize."

Science isn't close to making a competitive substitute for chicken. They've made a hamburger that cost over $500k, which isn't even close to competitive with Wagyu Beef in price, and judging from the response of those who ate it, barely competitive with a McDonalds ammonium-hydroxide patty in taste. Given that a typical broiler chicken only eats about 2.5 times its body weight in feed over its short lifetime, making a synthetic meat that can compete will be a hard task that will most likely take decades.

There is really a bite to it, there is quite some flavour with the browning. I know there is no fat in it so I didn't really know how juicy it would be, but there is quite some intense taste; it's close to meat, it's not that juicy, but the consistency is perfect. This is meat to me... It's really something to bite on and I think the look is quite similar.

Do you have any citation for the taste claim? From what I heard, taste was actually pretty good.

No, that's not what you read. The taste was intense, but nothing was said about it being intensely good. The texture was lauded, but the flavor was only mentioned. English is not your strong suit. Don't try to interpret it for us.

'Bite' usually means an acidic or sour taste. That is not something most people are looking for in hamburger. Add in the fact that it has an 'intense' flavor and I don't see how you could say it was good.

It mentioned in the sublinked article [sciencemag.org] that PETA had actually provided for a research fellowship. That involves actually giving out money to promote research. A two pronged approach seems reasonable in theory: give money directly to research, but dangle a prize out there to attract attention to the goal and attract more money than you would have directly.

Lets be honest, if there's one thing PETA is very effective at, it's PR. If there's another thing PETA is good at, it's getting more money flowing.

Try explaining to your cat what happened, or did not happen, to Schrödinger's Cat.

It might, or might not, work.

Anyway, the UK used to have some artificial food stuff called Turkey Twizzlers that were kinda sorta artificial. But celebrity twat chef Jamie Oliver made a fuss about them, so they got banned from school lunches. Kids seemed to like them with chips (fries), though.

Anyway, the UK used to have some artificial food stuff called Turkey Twizzlers that were kinda sorta artificial.

I don't think they were artificial in any way - not any more than any other food - they were just made from all the bits of meat swept off the floor at Bernard Matthew's factory and that offended the sensibilities of the do-gooder middle class who are always shocked and appalled at what the working classes eat.

Researchers in Mississippi examined chicken nuggets at two different fast-food chains and found that only about half of the nuggets were made of muscle meatThe rest of the nuggets were made of other chicken parts like fat, blood vessels, nerves, bones and cartilage

Exactly - gstoddart may very well choose not to eat any meat but the idea that because one considers a part of an animal "icky" implies that they are in any way fundamentally "bad" for human health is nothing more than bad reasoning - the same sort of bad reasoning that says slapping "organic" on a label makes the food fundamentally "good" for human health.

If this is true or not, it reminds me of the sacrifice of the giraffe in Copenhagen. Now, I am sure that many of us would rather live in captivity than be dead, but speaking for me captivity would not be such a good life.
Here is the thing. I choose to minimize the number of animals that are necessary for me to kill to live. It is a choice and I don't expect others to make the same choice. I realize that some people think it their right to maximize the destruction. That is OK.
But, unlike those that

A-typical case of "boo hoo, I don't like the source," so I'll throw a fit over it even if it's correct. How odd that there's no shortage of other papers that have reported on exactly the same thing now is there. But don't worry, I didn't up the statistics. Rather I posted a singular story, but didn't directly apply it to one shelter. After all, even you could spend the 30 seconds to use google and find out that I'm still right.

A-typical case of "boo hoo, I don't like the source," so I'll throw a fit over it even if it's correct. How odd that there's no shortage of other papers that have reported on exactly the same thing now is there. But don't worry, I didn't up the statistics. Rather I posted a singular story, but didn't directly apply it to one shelter. After all, even you could spend the 30 seconds to use google and find out that I'm still right.

The point is, that if there are more credible sources, use them. If a liar salts his lies with occasional truths, that doesn't entitle him to be considered a truthful source.

If someone quotes the Daily Mail to me, I'll just disregard their argument without bothering to check if it's one of the very occasional accurate articles. If someone quotes a more credible source, then I'll take time to investigate.

To be honest, you'd be better off quoting some drunk who's living homeless on the street rather than the Daily Mail as the drunk wouldn't bother to twist everything to fit an evil agenda.

The prize was bogus to begin with, as explained in this Slate article from 2008 [slate.com]. In short, it wouldn't be paid out unless the contestant was selling a ton of the stuff in stores and restaurants across 10 states over three months... at the same price as real chicken.

Science prizes are supposed to encourage development of things not yet commercially viable; this was a phony small tip for someone already successful. "Phony", because even if someone had the breakthrough needed on the day after this was announced, there's no way in hell that it could be approved for use and on market shelves in time to meet even the extended deadline.

And then there were the contest requirements, including full disclosure of ingredients and methods (trade secrets), carte blanche use of any- and everything related for PeTA's promotional purposes, rules subject to change without notice, and so on.

This was never a serious offer, just serious marketing, something PeTA mastered long ago. This "prize" retraction just got them some more free air time and, no doubt, some new members & donations... saith an older and hopefully wiser former member & supporter.

Alternatively, they genuinely thought we had a meat replacement ready to go and were just refusing to use it out of pettiness or evil. Given the way PETA talk about their ideological opponents it seems alarmingly plausible to me.

I have trouble believing artificial meat would be remotely competitive in terms of nutrients use and various supporting chemical agents, energy inputs, costs of installation, maintenance and even the need for an artificial immunological system.

Chicken are incredibly efficient, and their eggs are even more efficient, this is reflected in the low price of the meat and eggs. Yeah I've had a philosophy that when fossil fuels aren't directly involved, cheaper is mostly synonymous with ecological.It's possible that successful artificial meat on a massive scale would lead to more resource depletion and more global warming, in my mind. It would perhaps create incredibly resistant, "superbug" viruses or bacteria. I'm not terribly concerned with killing chicken in that scheme.

What certainly could be done is regulation to give way more space for the hen / chicken, small tariff on imports from countries that don't have a strong enough regulation yet. Yes, regulations, I hope that doesn't sound too evil and bureaucratic (weird how digiliently global regulations on IP are made up and applied yet libertarian corporate overlords don't bitch about them).

First of all, what may be expensive now, could be much cheaper than actually raising chickens in a few decades. It's just a matter of perfecting the methods of mass production.
Second of all, you missed the whole point of making artificial chickens, which is to avoid cruelty. 99% of the chickens consumed in the world are not happy chickens that roam around free in their pens, but rather they're raised their entire lives in little cubicles. This type of cruelty will no longer be needed if we're able to j

If you want a chicken like texture then eat quorn. It tastes remarkably close and has a similar texture. It's not so good as a substitute for other kinds of meat though. Not that I have any qualms about eating meat but some vegetarian alternatives are quite nice in their own right and just for a bit of variety.

People are violently allergic to lots of things. People are allergic to soy too. I'm not sure how it matters for people who are NOT allergic and a casual reading of the evidence suggests that the CSPI is vastly inflating the risk possibly due to a conflict of interest.

This is the true reason the prize went unclaimed: A lonely researcher from a poor religiously vegetarian family from the South Indian town of Saivakkadu developed such a chicken and was about to claim the prize. But Tyson food spies found out about it, bought the invention from the inventor by out bidding PETA and have rolled the process into production some three years ago. Suddenly all those animal cruelty sneak videos from the chicken farms reduced greatly in volume. Coincidence? I think not. Tyson finds

The chickens they mass produce today are artificial. They're so full of synthetic hormones and other chemicals they grow to 5 pounds or more in 6 weeks. I used to raise chickens when I was a kid and the average chicken breast in the store today weighs almost as much as an entire fryer from my flock used to. It's incredible. I flipped through a poultry catalog and they have things like "brandX." BrandX has to have special supplements in it's feed so their legs don't break because they weigh too much too

You can bet that as soon as some inventor hands a plate of vat-grown chicken to PETA and claims the prize, that PETA's general membership will turn it down as being "artificial." The foodies will spurn it for the same reason, no matter how good the taste becomes, and will have loads of fun ridiculing it in the fashion-magazine columns and on their obscure little cable channels.

When such meats are made, they will appeal to people who are concerned specifically about the ethics of factory farming, and

When we were young, Bernie's Deli was down the block
(Ooh ooh ooh ooh)He made a great liver pâté
(You know he did, you know he did, you know he did)But if there's one thing in this world that I like better
Than a corned beef on rye

They've been brow-beating Americans to stop eating meat so those who were, in one way or another, influenced by that campaign turned to chicken when what PETA really wanted was for everyone to become a miserable vegan. I guess they missed the memo that explained that PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.

If we stop eating chickens, what would we do with the ones we have? No farmer is going to feed them for no purpose. There are no natural habitats for them. If you stop eating chicken and eggs, it would be species genocide.

Artificial meat isn't meat for vegetarians, you aren't the target market. It's meant for omnivores. And experience has shown that some will pay extra for perceived ethical improvements, e.g. cage-free eggs vs. battery eggs. People would also be willing to pay some amount more for artificial meat.

People would also be willing to pay some amount more for artificial meat.

Some people. And some people, I'd wager much more, would not. After all, there are a number of artificial meat products already in the market. I think that it will take artificial meat being significantly cheaper before it will replace most of the meat from animals market.

The problem is that most vegetarians also avoid processed foods, if you get my gist. Manufactured foods are not kosher for many vegetarians, like for instance india with an astonishing 90% of population being vegetarian.

What the hell? There are a hell of a lot of vegetarians that don't eat meat for ethical reasons! There are also a lot of meat-eaters, like me, who have a sense of unease about eating animals but can stop because they are so delicious.

I knew a girl who was very skinny... she became vegetarian and almost died. She resorted to eating only fish and vegetables because vegetarian diet would kill her. That happened over years of research, support groups, health spa meetings, general fraternization with vegetarians and vegans everywhere.

Me, I didn't bother. My immune system fails and I start getting open wounds and sores out of nowhere if I stop eating meat--after two weeks! So fuck that.

Who would want it? Die hard long time vegetarians (like me) abhor fake meats as much as real meats - they are disgusting the (almost) the same way.

I'm a vegetarian and I disagree. Some fake meats are bad, particularly the cheap rehydratable variety, but others taste OK. They are not my favourite option but if I eat with non-veg friends and the vegi option is a vegi-burger I will have it and enjoy it.

I'm a vegetarian and I disagree. Some fake meats are bad, particularly the cheap rehydratable variety, but others taste OK.

I don't think the OP meant 'meat analogues' like soy or what have you. Most vegetarians have learned to deal with those, and some of them are pretty well done.

I think he meant 'fake meat' -- as in vat grown cells of animals which are somehow supposed to be a good thing and which some vegetarians suggest would be OK because there's no animal cruelty involved.

Some fake meats are bad, particularly the cheap rehydratable variety, but others taste OK. They are not my favourite option but if I eat with non-veg friends and the vegi option is a vegi-burger I will have it and enjoy it.

Why is it that vegetarians go to such lengths to procure food that tastes like meat but doesn't actually contain meat? If a vegetarian diet is so great, they wouldn't try to make their food taste like meat.

You don't see the rest of the population whining because their steak doesn't taste like tofu.

Vegetarians searching for products that taste like meat is more a western thing for ex-meat eaters, and many dont too; after 2 decades without eating meat, I too dont like even the smell of it. There have been vegetarians in India for thousand years, the first cow in Japan soil was killed in WWII by americans, and tofu has been made for 3 thousands years, without nobody caring if their food tastes like meat. Actually there also proofs Samurais were strictly vegetarians, the roman gladiators where mostly veg

My late godfather and myself went into it because we believe it is a far sane way, and then there are others who proclaim their body is a temple. Of course it helps going without meat for decades for the yuck factor to kick in. I definitively am not into yet because of the animals, and I am not alone.

PETA appears to be against the mass exploitation of chickens. If 10bn chickens are killed annually for meat, and that reduces to 10m, they will have succeeded... but the chicken would be far from extinct. Commercial chicken production could even stop completely, but people in rural areas would still keep chickens, as they have done for hundreds of years, for their eggs if nothing else (remember that dual-use nature of the chicken?) Chicken manure is also quite the asset if you're living rurally. And then you can sell the carcass to stupid town-dwellers who are prepared to pay high prices for the "real chicken" their parents used to talk about.

The chicken isn't going to go extinct just because we stop exploiting it for meat on a mass scale. Stop pretending that complex bio-economic systems work in binary. The choice is not "continue to exploit animals in their billions" vs "watch them go extinct", and only a fool would claim that it was. I mean, I fucking hate PETA, but I hate binary thinking more (and I use the term "thinking" reservedly). As for the idea that mass production of chickens has some kind of advantage in terms of bio-diversity - it's complete and utter propagandist nonsense, although I guess it kind of works if you close your eyes and ignore the species that already went extinct so we can have enough land to grow enough corn to feed 10 billion identical fucking chickens.

PETA appears to be against the mass exploitation of chickens. If 10bn chickens are killed annually for meat, and that reduces to 10m, they will have succeeded... but the chicken would be far from extinct. Commercial chicken production could even stop completely, but people in rural areas would still keep chickens, as they have done for hundreds of years, for their eggs if nothing else (remember that dual-use nature of the chicken?) Chicken manure is also quite the asset if you're living rurally. And then you can sell the carcass to stupid town-dwellers who are prepared to pay high prices for the "real chicken" their parents used to talk about.

The chicken isn't going to go extinct just because we stop exploiting it for meat on a mass scale. Stop pretending that complex bio-economic systems work in binary. The choice is not "continue to exploit animals in their billions" vs "watch them go extinct", and only a fool would claim that it was. I mean, I fucking hate PETA, but I hate binary thinking more (and I use the term "thinking" reservedly). As for the idea that mass production of chickens has some kind of advantage in terms of bio-diversity - it's complete and utter propagandist nonsense, although I guess it kind of works if you close your eyes and ignore the species that already went extinct so we can have enough land to grow enough corn to feed 10 billion identical fucking chickens.

What PETA is really against is humans. Otherwise they'd make themselves better informed about what the animals really want. If you believe PETA, all animals want to do is flee humans, and that's observably false. Even skunks have been known to move in next to human beings. Alaskan wolves show off their puppies to tourists, and don't even think of trying to do anything interesting around emperor penguins.

Actually meat won't raise your cholesterol. Or at least, it's unlikely to. In the last few years, we've found that most of what we thought we know about cholesterol to be wrong. Dietary cholesterol (that is, the cholesterol figure you see on food labels, as well as the cholesterol found in meat and eggs) doesn't actually raise your LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. What actually does is saturated fats, which are less likely to be found in meats than many vegetables.

Sorry, but it sounds like you don't know how pervasive monocultures are in modern agriculture. Thanks to globalization, even peasants living largely without the benefit of industrialization grow whichever crop will earn them the most money. Just as an example, in Laos, one of the least developed countries in the world, state-owned Chinese corporations are creating huge rubber plantations at the expense of huge swaths of native ecosystems. The chicken exists because of its commoditization, and it will tak

What I'd like to know is, why does PETA hate chickens so much? You don't have to be a genius to foresee what will happen to the chicken species if we abandon them as a food source.

That said, being able to grow slabs of chicken breast in a nutrient bath at home would be pretty sweet, if it could be done.

If you're not vegan, chickens are one of the most efficient ways of producing your own food. They don't need a lot of food, they can eat whatever they find in a pasture. They'll start producing eggs and do so for years (you don't even need a rooster), it's an excellent source of protein. You can keep two or three in a pretty small space as long as you can supplement their diet, and they'll still help keep the insect population down, and you'll have eggs every day.

No, otherwise they wouldn't go on massive slaughter-fests [petakillsanimals.com]. An animal PETA gets its hands on has an 84% chance of getting murdered within 24 hours.

To be fair to them they don't like it [peta.org] and only do it so that they can accept animals rejected by other shelters. I have mixed feelings on this, on one hand I think they should turn more away - but on the other hand if the alternative is the animals being dumped by the roadside or worse then maybe accepting and euthenising is best

I am sorry, I need a source other than PETA to believe that they don't like it. They provide no evidence that their claim is true. This is an organization which has been shown in the past to be willing to distort the facts in order to promote its agenda. It is also an organization that opposes the very concept of pets. So, to put it bluntly, I do NOT believe them. Since PETA believes that dogs and cats SHOULD be allowed to run feral (and only as many survive as manage to do so without human intervention), I believe they take these animals in with the intention of killing them since these animals apparently cannot survive in the wild without human intervention (the reason they are brought to the shelter in the first place).

I am sorry, I need a source other than PETA to believe that they don't like it. They provide no evidence that their claim is true.

You have a strange argument here. Its akin to saying that someone wanting to promote healthy living liked unfit people dying of heart attacks. Granted they are odd an extreme, but to say that they like killing animals - despite them saying the opposite - seems unjustified.

I am not saying that they "like" killing animals. I am saying that they prefer killing animals to allowing those animals to be adopted as someone's pet. PETA has given me reason to think that they believe it is better for those animals to die than for them to live as someone's pet.

A lot of my dislike of PETA is based on my impression that they're doing it more for attention than genuine concern for animals. The euthanizing seems to fit with that, killing animals that aren't attractive to make room for new animals which might gain sympathy. Much like I assume they do with attractive celebrity spokespeople who have gone past their prime. Another reason I dislike them is that they seem theistic in their defense of animals. Wanting to end all animal testing (which I assume they still

And then there's dogs, which work extremely well with humans and actively want human companionship. Even wild wolves don't pose much danger to humans, often coming close without hostility; and wild foxes will sometimes play with people.

There is no way that artificial chicken meat, or other meat for that matter, will be inexpensive enough to displace the business of raising actual livestock. The research should be focused and funded by medical interests who would seek to grow human tissue. From there, methods can be derived and adapted to creating artificial meat. It makes no sense to attempt this PETAs way... not financially anyway.

Find some vegetarian, and ask them if they would eat meat if it came from artificial means. If they're the type that doesn't eat meat because they feel sorry for animals, they will get a really confused look on their face, say, "well, uh......" and say something very entertaining and random. That's not something they think about normally.

There are all sorts of motivations - environmental, concern for animals, religious, or ethical based on a relative valuation of animal lives that differs from the norm. All will have different reactions to this. Some may also have a yuck factor - just the same as many carnivores would have if offered a meal of cultured human tissue - and may say that though logically they can't object, they wouldn't want to try it.

Wouldn't a human being who was a carnivore fall down dead from malnutrition pretty quickly? Everyone I know is an omnivore.

Yes I meant omnivore - though on the carnivore question I don't know. I believe Inuits were traditionally carnivores for most of the year, so I don't think you would suffer from malnutrition quickly, if you ever would.

Well now I'm clearly going to have to spend all afternoon looking up how the Inuit diet works, physiologically.

I can't imagine that humans are obligate omnivores. For the most part you need a more complex digestive system to live without meat - living only on meat should be a lot simpler. I'm sure there are meat sources of vitamins, and if not there are always pills.

Inuit diets were up to 90% fat. High protein, low-fat diets are associated with "rabbit starvation", a phrase derived from a phenomenon of hunter-gatherers only being able to obtain rabbit meat and eating until they were distended but still being hungry due to inadequate fat consumption.

Gary Taubes writes about an experiment run in the 1920s where two men ate an all-meat diet. About the only consequence they could find from this was that one man's gingivitis cleared up.

There was research into whether carbs were "essential"; that is, if the human body could not synthesize anything it needed instead of getting it from carbs. The result - carbs are NOT essential. You can get everything you need from being a carnivore. I can't find the paper right now, but it was written a long time ago by a doc that put people on different diets for 30+ days to find out what was/wasn't essential.

That's an interesting question as it will separate vegetarians into different groups according to their reasons for eating vegetarian. A lot of people assume that vegetarians are a single group with a shared set of beliefs and aims, but that's not the case at all. I'm a pescetarian (vegetarian with fish) for a whole bunch of reasons: health, resource usage, mistrust of modern animal husbandry etc.

Animal welfare is not a major concern for me (although I like animals and abhor cruelty), but I think I would

Huh? When I was a vegan, I'd have immediately said 'yes' to that question.

On the other hand, one of the primary benefits of being a vegan was that I had to reevaluate my diet and make conscious choices. I suppose if artificial animal products existed, I wouldn't have had that benefit. Nonetheless, I'd rather they did exist. I would hopefully have learned self-control some other way.

I'm not guilty, I'm fed up. Yes I eat meat. Yes I know the animals were treated poorly, lived like sardines in too small cages, stood in their own feces, were transported thousands of miles without food or water to be brutally murdered with a hammer or worse, then cut open while still alive and so on.

Can I now continue my steak or did I forget anything you were about to lecture me with?

Vegetarianism seems to be some sort of messianic religion. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people who don